Understanding the Complexities of Sex Work: Building Knowledge for Social Work

By Amy Huang

It is easy to go on a moral rampage against sex work by focusing on sex trafficking, the victimization of women and sexual violence. However, whether we are feminists who support women’s rights or social workers who advocate for social justice, could we condemn women who voluntarily choose to become sex workers? Do we consider that women have agency as sex workers?

Granted, I run the risk of people reading this opinion article and assuming that I am supporting sex work or I am encouraging women to be exploited or to be commodified. In fact, I am trying to highlight the complexities of sex work and to focus on the understanding of how sex work is considered work since it is perceived this way in some countries such as in NSW Australia or in New Zealand.

We need to stop taking such an ethnocentric perspective to sex work since it is mostly criminalized in the United States. Sex work still occurs in the U.S. illegally, yet because of its illegitimacy, women are forced to move to more isolated areas to avoid arrest and could not go for legal help if they are victims of violence (Lutnick et al., 2015). We need to understand that sex work will always exist regardless whether it is a legal or illegal industry; therefore, it is important to safeguard sex workers’ rights and promote the welfare and occupational safety of sex workers (Van der Meulin & Durisen, 2008).

As a social worker who grew up in the U.S., I had the privilege of conducting a qualitative study of sex workers in Sydney, NSW Australia and social workers who work with them. Initially, I had the same thoughts as radical feminists thinking that sex workers were all forced into sex work, that sex workers were past and present victims of abuse or they were dirty or “fallen” women who “lost” their virtue if they willingly became sex workers (Wahab, 2003).

My perception of sex work was heavily influenced by the portrayal of street workers in the media which is one of the most visible and policed form of sex work that is most written about (Ham & Gerard, 2014). In studies, street workers compared to indoor workers are more likely victims of crime, sexual/physical assault, murder or likely to become intravenous drug users (Vanwesenbeeck, 2001; Weitzer, 2005).

There is evidence, however, that street-based sex work constitutes only a small part of the industry in Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom (Weitzer, 2009). In fact, the majority of sex work takes place indoors and is less visible to the public.

In Sydney, sex workers are able to safely identify as sex workers since it is considered legitimate labor (Ham & Gerard, 2014). In Sydney, I was freely able to recruit sex work participants and social work participants that provide support for them. Since sex work is decriminalized, there are political organizations such as the Scarlet Alliance or the Sex Worker’s Outreach Project (SWOP) that provide support for sex workers. The founders of these organizations realize the difficulties of leading a double life working in a highly stigmatized occupation, therefore, these organizations provide a safe outlet where sex workers could freely identify themselves as sex workers and obtain support if needed.

My findings indicate that the majority of sex workers in this study did not want to be perceived as women who were forced into sex work. The majority of social workers that I interviewed supported their sex worker clients in their occupation. One social worker, “Vivian,” stated that “I am a big fan of sex work, (it is a smart choice) do you want to work hard or do you want to work smart, and I really think certainly there are some sex workers that don’t have any other employment opportunities or might have mental health or drug and alcohol issues that come to me, but they would be a minority. That’s because most of the women I have worked with have made a conscious decision that this is the best option that they have” [Vivian, (personal communication, October 2007)].

“Vivian” indicated that women who choose not to get paid minimum wage and work long hours at a coffee shop could “work smart” as sex workers as they could make more money in a short amount of time. Both social workers and sex workers also stated that there were not many degrees of separation between the two occupations since both workers found themselves finding strategies to engage clients. One social worker, “Kirsten” said, “I see it [sex work] as a legitimate profession and quite often I don’t see that there’s a difference between the service that I provide and the services they provide, except I keep my clothes on… we [both] use rapport building and I guess being able to separate, you know, avoid burn out and being able to unwind at the end of the day…” [Kirsten, (personal communication, October 2007)]. Kirsten admitted that there are a lot of similarities that could be drawn between social work and sex work, but social work definitely does not have the stigma that sex work has.

Granted, I know that by writing about the similarities between sex work and social work, that I may upset social workers. I know that social work is much different from sex work, as it requires formal education and many hours to become a licensed professional. I do not want to downplay the efforts that it takes to be a social worker nor convey that social work and sex work are alike or very similar. They are very different occupations since the latter is highly stigmatized. I am also not denying that violence and exploitation occur in sex work because there is evidence that both exist.

My point for writing this article was to highlight a marginalized perspective of sex work that that is often not mentioned, that sex work could be considered a legitimate occupation. I believe that people have the right to consider sex work a legitimate occupation. The majority of the sex workers I interviewed were indoor workers who felt empowered enough to make informed choices for working as sex workers. The social workers that I interviewed worked closely with their sex worker clients where they were at, and supported their clients if they wanted to remain in the sex industry. One of the social workers, Kerrie made a good point that it is important not to have an “us versus them” kind of mentality. When we start viewing sex workers as different from us, we may start “othering” and disempowering them.If social workers are fighting for social equality for their clients, they need to start understanding their client’s experience despite how controversial their choice of occupation may be.

Amy L. Huang is a practicing social worker in Los Angeles. She obtained her doctorate degree in social work at the University of Sydney and her master’s degree at California State University Long Beach.

References

Ham, J., Gerard, A. (2014). Strategic in/visibility: Does agency make sex workers invisible? Criminology & Criminal Justice, 14(3), 298-313.

Lutnick, A., Harris, J., Lorvick, J., Cheng, H., Wenger, L., Bourgois, P., & Kral, A. (2015). Examining the associations between sex trade involvement, rape, and symptomatology of sexual abuse trauma. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 30(11), 1847-1863.

Van der Meulen E., & Durisin, E. (2008). Why decriminalize? How Canada’s municipal and federal regulations increase sex workers’ vulnerability. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 20(2), 289-311.

Vanwesenbeeck, I. (2001). Another decade of social scientific work in sex work: A review of research 1990-2000. Annual Review of Sex Research, 12, 242-284.

Weitzer, R. (2005). New directions in research on prostitution. Crime, Law and Social Change, 43, 211-235.

Weitzer, R (2009).  Sociology of sex work. Annual Review of Sociology, 35(1), 213-234.

Wahab, S. (2003). Creating knowledge collaboratively with female sex workers: Insights from a qualitative, feminist and participatory study. Qualitative Inquiry, 9(4), 625-642.